Blistered Kind Of Love

by Angela Ballard

  At the gusty exposed ridge of Sierra Pelona, I started to experience some gusts of my own. My stomach was perfectly executing the quadruple lutz over and over again. Swallowing some pride, I told Casey to move on ahead and begged Angela for a break. She sat, guidebook in hand, and read, “From here we have a view south to the Vasquez Rocks and east to Mount Gleason, Williamson, and Baden-Powell.” All I wanted was a view of the ground. I tried to rally myself for the descent, but a quarter of a mile in, I was figuratively out of gas while literally full of it. We laid our space blanket underneath the shade of a manzanita and I collapsed in a heap of fatigue and bloating. Angela wasn’t sure what to do. Most of the time I was the one pushing us along; now the roles were reversed. She seemed very concerned, and I loved her for that. Feebly, I told her to go ahead. She looked at me, incredulous, and informed me that there was no way she was going to leave me here in the center of the trail—to die.

  Two hours later, I awoke to find her sitting cross-legged above me reading a section of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I was feeling marginally better, but the rapidly inflating gas bubble in my gastrointestinal tract was troubling my every movement and I was in need of some maintenance of my own. By this time my diagnosis was becoming clear. My mind flashed back to our hellish trek up Whitewater Canyon to cow-dung-riddled Whitewater Creek. There I was, lying in a foot and a half of water, gulping it by the mouthful. I was fully clothed, boots and all, and cool water was soothing my dusty throat while our PUR-Hiker water filter laid useless on the shore. Now it looked like I was paying the price for my indiscretion.

  I rummaged through Big Red for the med kit and found what I hoped would be the remedy. I gulped down two Flagyl tablets and we moved on. I was pretty sure that I’d contracted giardiasis, and feared that the worst, and runniest, was still to come.

  Giardia lamblia is a teardrop-shaped unicellular creature that alternates between two forms, trophozoite and cyst. The trophozoite is the active side of this schizophrenic beast. It uses five flagella to locomote through the small intestine of its host and to attach to the bowel wall. Under the microscope, the two nuclei of trophozoite sit adjacent to each other and resemble two large eyes. Once these quick and crafty creatures have set up camp in the intestine, they begin to reproduce like crazy, splitting into two Giardia lamblia over and over again. The newborns are released back into the bowel and as they move through it, they undergo a dramatic personality change. The flagella retract and they develop an environmentally resistant exterior. Transformed into sedentary cysts, they passively follow the path of crap and water until they can find another small intestine to awaken in. As cysts, Giardia can survive for weeks to months in water of just about any temperature, patiently awaiting ingestion by an unsuspecting bovine, beaver, bear, or backpacker. Giardia lamblia doesn’t seem to bother the other critters, but for some backpackers the result, one to three weeks later, is boom, and toot, and uh-oh, “beaver fever.” Fevers and fatigue are common early symptoms in those affected by giardiasis, although in some people there is no warning at all. Cramps, sulfuric burps, and explosive vomiting and diarrhea come on suddenly.

  Apparently this was how Fish manifested his infection, sitting up in the tent in the middle of the night and barely peeking his head outside before a disastrous two-pronged explosion. We heard the story the next day in Lake Hughes from poor Ryan, Fish’s tent-mate. I would have liked to ask Fish about it himself, but he was too preoccupied in a hotel bathroom. I left a several-day supply of Flagyl with Ryan and we wished them the best.

  A significant percentage of people—at least fifty percent—are immune to Giardia infection. That is, they may swallow the cysts and the trophozoites may stick to their bowel wall, but this process does not trigger any remarkable symptoms. It was possible that Angela was immune, or more likely just smarter about her drinking water choices. Anyway, she stayed healthy throughout my bout with giardiasis.

  I somehow managed to drag myself behind Angela to the Green Valley Ranger Station, a nearly twenty-three-mile day. By the next morning, after a couple more doses of Flagyl, I was feeling more energetic. My appetite, however, had deserted me and I found myself making frequent trail detours with trowel in hand—so frequent that Angela started calling me a trail name that I had, at one time, found amusing.

  “There goes my Trowel Boy . . . again,” she’d say.

  “So funny it makes me runny,” I’d reply.

  From the small community of Lake Hughes we detoured from the trail for a surreal twenty-mile road-walk across the Mojave Desert. This route, which cut off twenty-seven nearly waterless miles, had been well publicized at Hiker’s Haven and most of the hikers staying there had opted for it. While the official trail skirted the edge of the Tehachapi Mountains to avoid private land, we went straight up the gut of the Mojave. Starting in the evening to avoid the worst of the heat, we took Lake View Road past Fairmont Reservoir to the L.A. Aqueduct, a concrete conduit that takes water 338 miles from the Sierra to the lawns of Los Angelites. After filling our water bottles at an open section of the aqueduct, we dropped into the valley of the Mojave, weaving our way through a scorched landscape to 170th Street. We trudged along this unlit road in the darkness, occasionally taking refuge on the shoulder as a lone pair of headlights sped by. Finally, at about one in the morning, we pitched camp just feet from the road. I popped two Imodium tablets and hoped that I would last through the night.

  When I awoke and peeked outside the tent, I was startled by the beauty of the desert morning. It was refreshingly cool, and long shadows and Joshua tree silhouettes accentuated the starkness of the landscape. These “trees,” with their contorted, scaly trunks and yucca spike flowers, jabbed up and out of the surrounding sand, brush, and tumbleweeds. Joshua trees, named as such by the Mormons because they conjured up images of Joshua pointing toward the Promised Land, are the aesthetically dominating flora of the Mojave Desert. But as we abandoned the road in favor of the nearly dry bed of Cottonwood Creek, I found that there was much more to appreciate. Spring wildflowers dotted our path and lizards, antelope ground squirrels, and jack-rabbits scurried and bounded. Three pristine snow owls were spooked by our approach and lifted off from a cottonwood tree, soaring up canyon.

  At the bridge over Cottonwood Creek we were reunited with some familiar sights—the PCT, the L.A. Aqueduct, and the boys from Seattle. Over a short break, I tossed a Nerf football with Casey and Toby while they peppered me with medical questions. Toby asked about proper rattlesnake bite care, the utility of the Sawyer extractor, and the type and number of antibiotics I was carrying. Casey just wanted to know if I could write him a prescription for Percocet (a potent painkiller).

  We also spoke of boredom on the trail. “Do you remember Dunbar, from Catch-22?” asked Catch-23. “His sole goal in life was to cultivate boredom, so that his life would seem longer. He didn’t want to do anything interesting or exciting, otherwise life would go by too quickly.”

  “He would have liked thru-hiking,” remarked Angela.

  “Exactly what I was thinking. Hiking the PCT is all about spectacular monotony,” said Toby.

  Over the next couple days we made our way through the Tehachapi Mountains toward the town of Tehachapi. As we rose above 6,000 feet for the first time since the San Gabriel Mountains, we entered what some call the southern edge of the Sierra Nevada. The surrounding habitat looked far from alpine, however—Joshua trees, junipers, sagebrush scrub, and dirt bike marks filled our landscape, and there were no serrated, snow-capped peaks in sight. As we descended from our brief stay in the Tehachapis, a barrage of wind buffeted us, the likes of which not even my giardia-infested intestines could replicate.

  Tehachapi Pass is renowned for its nearly incessant wind and extreme weather patterns caused by cool, marine air coming from the west and hitting hot, dry air rising off the desert. As we raced past a windmill farm, I noticed black clouds hovering ominously ahead. These, combined with the constant and eerie whir of wind turbines, mad
e me feel like I was in a Hitchcock film. Angela looked ill at ease, and I shared her sentiment. We descended rapidly under darkening skies to Tehachapi–Willow Springs Road. Within minutes a BLM Jeep pulled over, and we gladly accepted a ride from three jovial rangers. Nine miles later, we were safely deposited in the town of Tehachapi.

  Our re-supply in Tehachapi started with a fierce thunderstorm that forced us to spend two hours in a vinyl booth at a fine eatery by the name of Denny’s. By this time I’d recovered from the acute phase of giardiasis but still had little appetite. I stared forlornly at half of a Super Bird sandwich before passing it to Angela.

  “The Mojave was everything we didn’t expect,” Angela remarked, munching on my Super Bird and sipping her sixth glass of Sprite. She was referring to the generally less-than-steamy temperatures, absence of rattlesnakes, and current rainy conditions.

  Aside from Denny’s, our most notable excursion in Tehachapi was to Kmart, where we purchased palm-size AM/FM radios. Initially, we’d been hesitant to bring radios, fearing that reception would be horrible and they would detract from our enjoyment of the trail. But after many, many, many hours of listening to nature’s orchestra, we were ready for a distraction. Casey and Toby (among others) were battling the trail’s spectacular monotony with radios and reported that the reception was not too bad. These important acquisitions promised not only to enhance my ability to keep up with the NBA Finals but also to provide Angela an opportunity to learn some manners from AM radio’s doctor of ethics and etiquette, Laura Schlessinger (Dr. Laura).

  As we resumed our trek after a day’s layover, we stood at thirty-three days and 555 miles into our journey, a little over one-fifth of the way to Manning Park. At the time, though, we weren’t thinking in terms of getting to Canada. Instead, we were primarily interested in covering the remaining 145 miles to Kennedy Meadows, the PCT’s gateway to the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Our conversations now began to center on topics such as snowy passes and spring run-off, and names like Adams, Donner, and Muir.

  No discussion of the Sierra Nevada would be complete without a quote or two from the great John Muir, the patriarch of man’s appreciation of the Sierra Nevada. Given our mountainous preoccupation at the time, let’s start with, “Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.” Yes, I was ready to feel the flow of nature’s peace; I was ready to climb into some real mountains, The Mountains. Spanish missionary Pedro Font, when he first gazed upon The Mountains, described them as “un gran sierra nevada,” or “the great snowy range.” At four hundred miles long, sixty miles wide, and with a peak elevation of 14,491 feet, they are not only that but much more.

  I’d been eagerly anticipating this portion of trail since long before we’d left Campo. As a teenager I’d spent part of several summers in the Sierra, and experienced the pristine beauty of Muir’s “Range of Light.” I knew that The Mountains sure as hell beat the coyote scat out of the desert. Angela had never been in the Sierra before and didn’t know the difference; as far as I could tell she still considered her conquest of Turkey Mountain a monumental event. So for the first 555 miles of trail, I’d tried to convince her that she should be juiced to get to The Mountains. For every twenty-mile piece of waterless trail we’d suffered, I promised, “Water is ubiquitous in the Sierra.” For every cow-patty-infested trickle that we found to relieve our thirsts, I told her, “Just wait until you see the clear, cold streams and lakes of the Sierra.” Every time we’d walked on or along paved roads for miles at a time, I reminded her, “In the Sierra, we won’t see a single stinkin’ road for two hundred miles.” And every time she complained about having to go days without an ice-cold brew, I reminded her of my intention to “tap the Sierra . . . Nevada” just for her. Okay, maybe a tap or two for me, too.

  Our goal was to make Kennedy Meadows by June 15, or “Ray Day,” as Meadow Ed and others referred to it. June 15 is the key date used in all of Ray Jardine’s itineraries for reaching the Sierra. Jardine believes that starting on this day allows hikers the best chance of avoiding major snow obstacles while plowing through the mountains. So, like long-distance runners catching a second wind as they sense the finish line, we busted ass through the Piute Mountains and Walker Pass.

  As we rushed the last fifty miles toward the gateway to the Sierra, we were not alone in eager anticipation. Crazy Legs and Catch-23 continued their own unconventional ramble toward the Sierra. These two were consistently proving that one didn’t need to follow the textbook to have long-distancing hiking success. Quite a few hikers we met along the way ascribed to some degree to a Jardinite, cookbooklike approach to hiking: minimize weight, rise early and hike until dark, avoid alcohol, caffeine, and unhealthy foods. But Casey and Toby wanted nothing to do with the cookbook. Their pattern of sleeping late and hiking late into the night continued, being more pronounced in Casey’s case. On several occasions he snuck up on us from behind at a near sprint, pack bouncing from side to side as he raced to catch Catch-23. Casey and Toby retained as many civilized luxuries as possible—Walkmans, airplanesize miniature rum bottles in their re-supply packages, and nightly rounds of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” from Crazy Legs’ trivia paperback. All in all, they were, as Toby said, “Trying to keep it real on the PCT.”

  On the morning of June 15 I was so excited I could hardly stand it. I made the descent from Lamont Peak to Canebrake Road at a full trot, reminding myself to stop every once in a while so that Angela could catch up. By midafternoon we’d covered more than twenty miles, and as I rounded a dusty corner with trekking poles flying and radio blaring I caught sight of an unbelievable thing: a deep blue-green, twenty-foot-wide moving body of water—the Kern River—the first significant water source on the PCT since Big Bear Lake. I waited for Angela before diving into the Sierra snowmelt; this was too precious a moment to enjoy alone. The river, warmed by its long course through The Mountains, was a perfect temperature, and it washed miles and miles of dust off of me. Lying on a flat slab of granite near the river’s edge I sighed deeply, wishing I never had to move, ever again. Angela looked content, not to mention sexy, lying on her own granite bed.

  We’d made it to The Mountains. Soon, we’d be hiking at 10,000 feet, with fresh cold air filling our lungs; looking up at weather-molded peaks and down on glacier-carved valleys and brilliant green meadows; resting under gnarled pines—whitebark, foxtail, and lodgepole; and sniffing the spring flowers—Sierra penstemon and primrose. We’d be out of the desert, away from roads, and in John Muir’s world. I hoped Angela liked it, because if not I might be in trouble. I didn’t need to be reminded of one of the oldest rules of courtship: “Don’t promise a woman jewelry . . . and give her a chunk of cow patty.”

  Lost in Wonderland

  WITH MY FEET STILL DANGLING in the cool water of the Kern River, I stretched my dripping body over as much of the sun-baked granite slab as I could. “This is what it must feel like to be a lizard,” I thought as I pressed my fingers against the lichen-speckled mass below me. The rock seemed warm enough to be alive, and for perhaps the first time since our journey began, I felt like a natural complement to my surroundings. I looked over at Duffy; he swooned in a similarly indolent pose. Gazing upward, I watched wispy clouds disinte-grate and coalesce again in the bright blue sky. It was the kind of blue I longed for in my crayon box back in first grade, a shade I thought existed only in my imagination. Dragonflies darted, zoomed, and hovered overhead. In their wings I caught glimpses of rainbows.

  We could easily have lounged on the banks of the Kern River for hours, but the belly rumblings that started off faintly soon turned into tumultuous, demanding roars. There was a deep crevasse where Duffy’s abdominal six-pack had once been. He’d probably lost ten pounds since Campo. Dinner in Kennedy Meadows called. Walking the last few miles to town, we meandered our way amidst willows and wild-rose tangles.

  By the time we reached the steps of the Kennedy Meadows General Store, it was 8:30 in
the evening. We’d expected a welcoming committee of trail friends, but the place was deserted. Hikers had been here, there was glaring evidence of that: half-empty packs, water and Gatorade bottles, and gutted re-supply boxes. But it was as if an apocalypse had struck the long red porch. A hand-painted sign by the dirt road indicated that “Real Hollywood Movies” were shown in the store’s amphitheater every Saturday night, but it was only Wednesday. We had just decided to walk the two and a half miles to the Kennedy Meadows Campground when a large pickup with an open-topped cattle car on the back came barreling down the road. Nearly every available space on the truck was crammed with bodies—dirty, ragged, grinning bodies—a veritable sea of happy hiker trash. They were just returning from dinner at the Grumpy Bear restaurant and now were on their way to the campground.

  We climbed into the back of the truck (which we later learned was owned by the proprietor of the Grumpy Bear) and found a small crack of railing to cling to. All around us hikers sat on benches and green deck chairs that were nailed to the truck’s floor. As we rumbled into the campground a glaringly white, shiny mass appeared on the horizon. No, not the long awaited snowy peaks of “un gran sierra nevada,” but rather Meadow Ed’s ass, in full moon. I’d been anxiously awaiting our reunion with Ed. I’d never properly thanked him for all the instruction he’d given us at Kamp Anza and (more importantly) I wanted to see the expression on his face when we arrived—still together, umbilical cord and all. Well, here it was—wrong end, but adequately expressive nonetheless.